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A long time ago I went to a talk on gardening at Cretan Corner in Aptera. I can't remember the name of the person who gave the talk but one of the questions was about getting rid of Oxalis. He said that it was virtually impossible to get rid of but the best solution was to repeatedly run over it with a heavy roller. Every time it came back use the roller again. Eventually it would stop coming but it would need many many repeats.

Personally I use Roundup. It still comes back but at least it works for a time. Yes I know how terrible it is and the world will end if I continue to use it but hey-ho, I don't use vast quantities and I don't intend to grow anything edible on my gravel drive or anywhere close to it so I am probably reasonably safe.

Wood sorell or Oxalis is good food for the hens , and a very good green manure.I just leave it to die and rot down . or just rotivate it in to the soil ,it helps with the moisture retention ..I don't like using roundup near anything I'm gonna eat , or my hens are gonna eat ...so that means I never use it ...

Have been sitting on our gravel between rain showers this morning and pulling out weeds, mainly grass and empathise with you all regarding the fact that those weeds just keep growing . From Warwick's link we now know which flamethrower we want to get so it's just a case of getting into Chania. We have dogs and cats and are reluctant to use chemicals and have tried a salt and a vinegar solution with partial success, although have read that the salt will also dry out nearby plants which we don't want to happen.

We've ordered from Amazon.de in the end following advice from the 'spare battery for a Lidl drill' thread. It's €10 cheaper than the UK site and will arrive early next week. Warwick's links allowed us to peruse and decide upon what we wanted and we've also ordered a pressure reducer so no flame throwing here I'm afraid , simply weed extermination. We not only have gravel on our drive but also deep gravel steps taking us to a lower level of the land, plus a large 'arid' garden (someone tell the weeds that!) with cactii, etc. So our new device will be extensively used.

Meant to say, the actual term for the device we've ordered and which Warwick linked us to, is a gas soldering device. I initially used the term 'flamethrower' for wont of a better description . There are plenty of uTube demonstrations on how best to use it on weeds